Profile
Emma Mendel is a landscape designer, educator, and researcher, with an MDes in Urbanism, Landscape and Ecology from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, an MLA from the University of Toronto, and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Mendel was previously a full-time Lecturer in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia, where she actively engaged in the Global South Humanities Lab. Her research has been supported by grants from the Graham Foundation and the Mellon Foundation, centred on cultural and anthropological investigations of landscape, ecology and landscape representation. The confluence of these interests has shaped her approach to practice, research, and teaching. Specifically, Mendel is interested in the critical role that water plays in the growth of contemporary human settlements, predicated on hydrological planning and engineering. With the McHarg Fellowship, Mendel will study how folklore and local myths can act as effective mitigation strategies for a changing environment, alongside more standard engineering approaches. Through this lens, her research and teaching will focus on culturally-nuanced and ecologically-sensitive hydrological systems within the Greater Philadelphia Region.